Dragon Ball Z Timelines Explained. 

I was so confused on how the timelines worked as a kid. Finally it makes sense now

Damn, this stuff more complicated than math thats tuff

Not the most complex timeline but you did a fantastic job explaining everything. It’s epic how future trunks makes his return in DBS too

main problem with time travel in general is you can't travel back to your original timeline once you've altered the past (you can only travel to the altered past's future, unless you go back in time again to prevent yourself from altering the past in the first place).

Very well put together, love the visual timelines, well done!! So ironic how Cell kills Trunks twice, but Trunks also kills Cell twice!!

The official timeline is actually just wrong, and a little poorly thought out. This is what _actually_ happened: *Timeline 1* = _Original Timeline:_ Goku kills Frieza when he arrives back on Earth. Goku later dies of the heart disease. The Z Fighters are killed by Dr. Gero's Androids. Bulma builds the time machine and Trunks goes back in time to save Goku. Trunks returns from the past and then waits a year before going back. When he returns from his second trip to the past, he returns with the Blueprints for the Androids and creates the destruction device. Trunks uses this device to destroy the Androids. Three years later Cell shows up, kills Trunks, and then travels back to the past to find the Androids. Only Bulma survives and presumably the Earth is rebuilt by the surviving humans. Buu probably never shows up due to the Z Fighters not being present. *Timeline 2* = _Unseen Timeline:_ Trunks arrives from the future and kills Frieza before Goku arrives. Goku survives the heart disease due to the vaccine given to him by Trunks. Trunks warns the Z Fighters about the Androids and then leaves back to his timeline. After a year, Trunks comes back to the past. He finds the blueprints for the Androids and takes them back to the future. Trunks never returns, having been killed in the future by Cell, and the Z Fighters have to fight the Androids without him. They are victorious against the Androids, and Cell doesn't appear in this timeline until the year 788 (21 years after Trunks left with the Blueprints). Cell, having matured from his fetal form into Imperfect Cell, emerges to find the Androids have already been destroyed. It is unknown if the Z Fighters survived their fight with this Cell (though it is very likely), or if Buu ever shows up in this version of the timeline. *Timeline 3* = _Main Timeline:_ Cell, after killing Trunks in the Original Timeline, travels back in time to the year 763 and creates a new version of the past. Having had to revert into an egg form in order to fit into the time machine, cell has to wait 4 years in order to mature back into his Imperfect form. When Trunks travels back in time from the Timeline 1 to save Goku from his heart disease, this time he arrives in this new version of the past that has been altered by Cell's arrival in 763. Trunks kills Frieza before Goku arrives. Trunks warns the Z fighters about the Androids and then travels back to his own timeline. A year later, he returns to the past and finds the blueprints for the Androids. They discover the Old Time Machine from the picture, and they deduce that something has gone wrong. Trunks this time doesn't go back to his own timeline to destroy the Androids with the Blueprints, but instead stays and helps the Z Fighters defeat the Androids in this timeline. The events of the Android and Cell Sagas takes place in this timeline. Trunks returns to his own future. The Buu Saga takes place some years later, as well as the events of Dragon Ball Super. *Timeline 4* = _New Future Timeline:_ Trunks returns to the future from Timeline 3 and proceeds to destroy the Androids with ease, due to the strength he had gained from his time with the Z Fighters in Timeline 3. 3 years later Imperfect Cell emerges, and Trunks defeats him easily as well. Trunks defeats Dabura and Babidi and prevents the resurrection of Buu. The events of the Goku Black Arc then takes place, leading to more timelines being created (I won't go into those for now).

This was so easy to understand, thank you 🙏🏼

Really really really really well explained👏🏻👏🏻

Should I make a vid on Super's timelines? I would use the manga version of events.

Perfect video man great job you earned a subscriber

Timelines were so confusing this really helped thank you

Tbh.. This Timeline thing makes much MUCH more sense now to me! Thanku so much 🙌 It's a causal loop! One event happens cuz of the other but the latter one is responsible for the original event!

Perfect explanation, thank you

This basically confirms that the cell reborn arc will come from the unseen timeline where trunks didnt have any surprises and went back to his original time while cell was never destroyed or even discovered

this cleared it all up for me. thank you

Great video hero

This video helped me understand everything now. You deserve more subs and more views.

Wow thanks man !! It's was very good..

The more i watch this video more and more times I get a better explanation thanks mate❤️

Thanks for this.

Good work with video make sense for smooth brain .

The timelines in DBZ make zero sense honestly. They sound more like dimension hopping and timeline hopping. If we talk about the 4th dimension we're able to (in theory) see our future and see our past and go directly forward and backward in that straight line. 5th dimensional travel speaks of seeing different branches within the linear timeline and being able to explore them. So in this case I don't think he's traveling to different timelines, he's traveling to different dimensions. Original Dimension: Goku lands on Earth, fights off Frieza/Cold, dies of a cold, Trunks survives the shit hole and goes "back into the past", but really is just going to... Dimension 2: Goku lands on Earth "after" Trunks kills Frieza/Cold as he feels he has no choice, saves Goku, then goes back into his original dimension. He returns once to help with the battle of the androids, they all somehow defeat them, then Trunks goes home to kill his own androids and bam - after doing so - he dies. Dimension 3: Cell goes to a third dimension where Goku is out of commission for the android fight and Trunks steps in. Things plan out as we see in the anime and Trunks after the defeat of Cell returns to his own dimension, which is the original dimension. This all makes the assumption that Trunks always goes back and always dies at some point, triggering Cell to always go back in order for them to discover Cell to save a different Trunks. "IF" the rules of time travel do not follow logical time travel rules in DBZ (what affects the past affects the future etc) then it's dimension hopping, not time travel. Then Super comes along with zero logic and fucks it all up further. Least in my opinion.

Perfect explanation!

WOW great discription I'm playing around w/ RPG maker doing a chrono trigger game and I wanted to use the trunks time theory

The Timelines that Trunks Created Traveling through Time Should of Splintered off into More Parallel Realities so Trunks Created a Multiverse of Madness.

You explained it well. My only 2 questions now are: 1) in episode 143 (age 767) imperfect cell tells piccolo that his fetal self would be awaken in 24 years. So shouldn’t this mean that cell would kill trunks in the future in age 791 instead of age 788? 2) in that same episode, piccolo says he understands and says that cell killed trunks in the future and went back to the original coordinates that trunks had put. So why were the coordinates put for 1 year before freeza and Goku arrived?...since that’s when cellfirst traveled back in time

So the orginal z timeline is peaceful but all hero’s of earth are dead including communication with king kai and the complete extinction of the sayian race but atleast it’s peaceful now

In time line 3 Cell mentions that Trunks killed Frieza.. Shouldn't Cell mention that Goku killed Frieza since he is originally from time line 3?

I'm just gonna steam role through my interpretation of everything * Timeline 1: Goku defeats Frieza/Cold; Goku dies of heart virus; Androids 17 & 18 terrorize the planet; Trunks travels back in time to give Goku the cure. * Timeline 2: Trunks defeats Frieza/Cold; Goku survives the virus; Androids 19 & 20 are defeated; Trunks returns to his time (Timeline 1) with the schematics for Android 17 & 18 (this return trip creates an other timeline due to an alternate version of Trunks traveling to the exact same point in the future [this is elaborated on later, but for now this Trunks will arrive in Timeline 4]). * Timeline 4: Trunks returns from Timeline 2; The Androids are disabled and destroyed; Cell kills Trunks and uses his time machine to travel back to Timeline 2 one year before Trunks originally traveled back and defeated Frieza/Cold (though frankly I'm not sure why the time machine didn't take him back to Timeline 1, one year before Goku defeated Frieza/Cold). * Timeline 2 (cont'd): Cell arrives; Cell's presence (namely the time machine and his fight with Piccolo) result in a new timeline (Timeline 3) where Trunks decides to stay instead of leave with the schematics. * Timeline 3 (the timeline we experience): The events of the Cell saga take place; Trunks becomes stronger and returns to his original timeline, Timeline 1. However, Trunks returns to Timeline 1 twice: once in Timeline 2 with the Androids' schematics (when there was no Cell), and once in Timeline 3 after the events of the Cell games. Theoretically they should have run into each other given that they both returned to the exact same point in the future (which would have created a paradox). Therefore, a new Timeline must have been created for both Trunks' - Timelines 4 & 5 - with Timeline 3 Trunks going to Timeline 5. * Timeline 5: Trunks destroys Android 17 & 18; Trunks defeats Cell. There are a number of problems with this that I'm aware of, but this is the best I can do without a definitive explanation on how time travel really works in the DBZ universe. There's the problem of Trunks returning to the future for the first time which theoretically should have just taken him to Timeline 2's future, but instead it took him back to his timeline (Timeline 1) which makes no sense due to the double Trunks paradox. This forced me to created Timeline's 4 & 5 which implies that each time someone time travels, an alternate timeline is automatically created if a paradox would occur. In any case there are many more problems to fish out of this, but I'm at my limit with this explanation. Thanks if you read until the end.

Finally i understand this timeline thing ❣

I personally think this is closest accurate description. 👍

There will eventually be an imperfect cell born in timeline 4, right? A couple of years after the incidents. A cell which goku and gohan will have no trouble in killing.

Ok I know this video is 4 years old by now but hopefully it reaches someone because I have a problem with this theory..... You said that in Timeline 3, the Original timeline, it was GOKU who defeated Freeza & Cold in 764. Then Later in that SAME timeline, The ORIGINAL timeline, you said CELL kills future trunks in 788 and travels to Timeline 1. The problem here is, CELL can NOT come from timeline 3, where GOKU killed freeza and cold. Because when CELL was explaning his Origins to Piccolo and how he has everyones DNA, he said GERO got FREEZA's DNA when he arrived on earth before TRUNKS killed freeza. He also explained that GERO decided not to get TRUNKS DNA because they had enough SAIYAN information already. So the CELL we know come from a timeline were TRUNKS killed freeza and cold. NOT from the original timeline were GOKU killed freeza and cold. So we're is CELL from then???

This was amazing, My Dragon Ball fan.... Because i watch all time DB, DBZ, DBGT, Super all story episode 😁 Dawn I never seen that for real dawn Cell saga. At 4:30 i remember that Truck appear time travel after Truck saw a dead body android 19 and Goku get injury with virus heart. I never knew Truck person timeline. That correct... Here, i watch what happened Dragon Ball Super Truck future end of the world very sad.

I've got a couple things I'd like to discuss with you. Cell says "we could have added Trunks's cells to the line, but we had enough Saiyan samples." This implies that the time Cell comes from had Trunks visit when Frieza arrived. Also, in your explanation, why would the new timeline 4 created by Trunks deciding to stay because of Cell in 767 now all of a sudden not have Cell arrive from the future 4 years prior? Wouldn't all events that occur before the creation of a new timeline still happen? Lastly, if timeline 4 Trunks (that didn't decide to stay) was the one that cell eventually killed in timeline 3 when he went back, wouldn't there have been 2 Trunkses in timeline 3? That one as well as the one that did end up staying. At least up until Cell tries to hijack the time machine. Let me know what your thoughts are. Can you tell I loved your video and watched it a lot? Great video!

It’s funny because cell killed trunks in the future but by him going in the past and changing the timeline he inadvertently saved trunks from dying

It's easy to see the two different future timelines. One where Trunks turns off the Androids, Cell sneaks up on Trunks and kills him and steals the time machine. The other where powerful Trunks destroys the Androids and Cell with his bare hands

Man it is so sad but Cell killed Trunks in original timeline but still amazing that Trunks get revenge in killing Cell in another timeline

This explanation makes Sense. trunks from t3 went to timeline where Cell never came to interfere thus trunks wasn’t strong enough to kill the androids and used device and eventually died to cell leading to t1 and t2 making trunks from t2 to become strong enough to kill the androids and cell in t2

Looked this up after re watching dbz. As a kid this never crossed my mind. Watching it today however the two time machines confused me beyond belief

1 mistake. Timeline 4 has a Cell. Because the paradox that creates TL4 occurs AFTER Cell goes to the past, Cell is present in 3 and 4. Trunks leaves TL4 with the blueprints and never returns to TL4 because he dies. However Cell is around, he Perfects, and this creates the Cell Games without Trunks as stated in Daizenshuu 7. In TL1 Bulma is alone. Cell is gone to the past, and there isn't enough energy for Babidi to revive Buu but he should still come for the egg. So what happens there?

How did Trunks kill Cell from Timeline 3 if that same Cell traveled back in time to History Of Trunks? Wouldnt that Cell not exist due to him traveling to the past? 🤔

For some reason I thought there was a scene in the anime that explained it with lines like this when I was a kid. Guess I was trippin

If future Trunks was going to the past to tell the Z fighters that he defeated/shut down the androids, why did he set his time machine coordinates to go further into the past?

People always try to use the logic from the perspective of the characters in the show. To put it simply they don't know how time travel works. It doesn't mean it's not valid it just means they don't understand how new timelines are created. Basically there are literally infinite numbers of variations of the timeline. We just view them from a linear perspective.

Take a shot for everytime he says take a shot for when he says “back to the future”

Trunks from timeline 3 784 travels to timeline 4 (unseen) 764 to kill Frieza and King Cold, giving Goku the medicine and tell the Z fighters about the Androids

I must go check. I remember that when we were kids we used to say that Trunks created *FIVE* timelines. This video explains everything clearly, so I must go back check why we thought there was a 5th one. Honestly, right now I can't remember.

How do you know that trunks stayed only one year in the future to refuel the time machine. Is it mentioned anywhere else? I haven't heard about it anywhere

This kinda made sense

must be a very sad future for Bulma as his son was killed by future Cell. To make things worse, she probably never knows her son was killed, it's just simply that his son never returns from his trip to the past, as Cell has taken his Time Machine. But I assume the Earth will return to peace in this timeline, as there is no Androids, no Cell, not even a single Z fighters nor Dragonballs.

My biggest question is how did Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, etc deal with Boo, Beerus, or Zamasu in the unseen timeline

I understand now, cuz it always confused me hope cell was able to kill trunks in his timeline, that trunks didn't train and get stronger but destroyed the androids with a remote

This is so accurate I understand most of it but enough for me to care but I know gt isn't cannon but how did that come in

So the cell that was still in the Gero’s lab in the main time line is the cell from the future that killed trunks. Since trunks and cell were babies in the main timeline. So by cell arriving one year early in the past makes trunks one year too late on returning to the future where he is killed. Correct me if I am not entirely right

then what timeline was that when beerus shoved mai and trunks into a old future was that timeline 2 again but far back in timeline 2

BRO WTF THIS IS THE MOST CONFUSING THING TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND EVER

I’m bit lost 2:59 Didn’t trunks stayed in the main timeline for present bulma to build an emergency button?

Even if he waited one year he goes back two years too early and thus a new timeline is made one where they shouldn't know trunks or one where they do but its not him they know but rather the one that already died

they should of shown two Trunks meeting each other , imagine having two Gokus

So did Trunks also bring the Goku from time-line 4 the Medicine? So time-line 4 is one either with a healthy Goku who can destroy the androids, and no cell OR one where Goku dies, Androids win and just casually kill tiime till cell is born? Or is that a 4a 4b scenario?

Trunks works for the TVA now

If trunks dies in his timeline, ' the one goku dies' how is he alive for the timeline where he saves Goku? So what, Cell going back to the past, restarts the timeline?

After trunks defeat cell in his timeline we all know what happened next? Zamasu appears and attacks the city.

I get it but why wasn’t there a Cell in Timeline 4? And also where would Cell from Timeline 2 go to find the Androids?

Ever since trunks returned in super I've been confused as hell

Wait so trunks had the blue prints and defeated the androids right? He then leaves his time again but cell kills him then we see the time was set 4 years before frieza and stuff which means… TRUNKS WAS GONNA LET THEM DIE?

When i am right so in the main timeline there should be two cells or not? The one who is travelling and the who kid gohan destroys?

If the present timeline is changed then there is a possibility of changing the future

Correction timeline 4 is supposed to have a cell (the one in the basement)

the thing thats so interesting is we don’t actually know how many times Trunks time traveled. We are only shown what plays out in the series, the Manga, and History of Trunks etc I agree with everyone else here about the plotholes and they may very well be mistakes by Toriyama. Thats why the “Unseen Timeline” is important. Question is, how many “Unseen Timelines” are actually out there When Cell explains his origins to Piccolo, he specifically states he simply “pushed a button, the time machine was already set” to go back. Thats a clear contradiction to Piccolo’s rationale when he says “he must have tried to come back to tell us he defeated the androids” WHY WOULD TRUNKS travel a whole year before the Z fighters even knew who he was, before Frieza. It would be pointless. Then Cell states he could taken the DNA from Trunks when he fought Frieza. HOW COULD CELL even know about the fight because the timeline he came from is the one where Goku kills frieza and he personally kills older Trunks later on to obtain the time machine

I have a question. Are Timelines different from Universes?? Also, is Goku from the present timeline?

So in one of these timelines, their is two trunks and two cells?

When piccolo meets cell, how is trunks there? Isn't he dead? Or trunks actually doesn't die in his timeline.

This is by far the best and most logical explanation that i have found youtube Sofar. good job man. but I believe there should be 8 timelines. if each paradox splits one timeline into two and we have 3 paradoxes. then 2^3=8. For example there could be a timeline where there is no future trunks but a future cell.

I can officially say you lose me at 3:35

My question is, From where did Trunks arrive in the main timeline-1 that we see in the anime? In timeline 3, he dies. From timeline 4, he goes to timeline 3. Timeline 2 has the Trunks who went there from timeline 1. So how the heck he was there in timeline 1?

did this still hold up to the DBS understanding of timelines?

I got so confused at around four minutes. Is main trunks from 3 or 2? And why does it show him from timeline 4 going to three?

0:24 Cells timeline is the original timeline.

So the Trunks that gave Goku the antidote, got killed later on.

My question is why did alternate future Trunks set the time machine to go to the year before Gokus arrival? Cell told piccolo that when he stole the time machine he used the date that Trunks programmed into it. So why would he go to that year?

So hypothetically, there would be a main timeline Cell that still exist, but didn’t absorb the Androids.

What future did trucks return too after his universe was destroyed.

It was all going so good until the freeza saga why did toriyama had to mess it up with the time travel stuff.

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT how would he take him back in time in the capsule??? Is that stated somewhere for real? Because it wasn't big enough for small Cell lol much less trunks PLUS Goku are they gonna like curl up into a ball and stack on top of each other?!

'What about the time line where cell never returns but trunks is killed, causing a split because trunks returned to one timeline and the ither time line cell gets killed but killled trunks

but why in the timeline 4.. on the toriyama pic say: ( and the cell game begins and trunks is absent) ? só if exist one perfect cell.. exist another dead of trunks

I love it how the explanations are so clear so I can appreciate how fucked up the time travelling stuff is more xD

I don't get why the unseen timeline is necessary for understanding how Cell can be dead and travel to the past. Three timelines seems to be more than enough for me

It doesn't make sense why trunks set the time machine to go to 4 years earlier than the time period he had already visited

I hate anything with time travel in it cause it is confusing and when time travel is in a series it should be explained perfectly in the series so it don’t lead to confusion etc

The creators obviously didn't think this out, I don't think there is a possible way to make total sense of it

So if in timeline 1, trunks goes back to the future in timeline 3 with the plans gets killed by cell, and then cell goes to timeline 1, how is trunks still in timeline 1 if he left it to go to timeline 3?

I’m confused if he goes back to original time line and dies from cell , how does he go back to main timeline ?

What happened to the timeline that trunks kill by cell, unseen timeline what if future trunks choose that timeline to go back after zamasu destroyed the future timeline, so he can be reunited with his mother bulma that lose his future trunks killed by cell

Why didn't future trunks send Picollo from the past into his future timeline? With Picollo present, dragon balls could be used to revive everyone? 🤔

The thing that annoys me about this whole thing is that it's never covered how Trunks defeated the androids before Cell kills and steals Trunks' time machine. It's assumed that he found the blueprints, but the blueprints were in Dr Gero's lab with Cell's tanked "fetus", so he must've killed the Cell in that timeline prematurely as well. And why would he go to the lab to begin with? It's a little too convenient for my taste. Unless I'm misunderstanding something...?

Timeline 4 does have a Cell, every timeline does. Cell(3) is the only one that time traveled. The Cell we know, Cell(3), is the ultimate villain Cell, the only one who killed Trunks(twice) and time traveled. Trunks(3) originally traveled to Timeline 4 in which the Androids were defeated via the remote and Cell was never discovered, then Trunks(3) went back to Timeline 3 and was killed by Cell(3). Cell(3) traveled to Timeline 1, AKA the show we watch. Timeline 4's fate is unknown because Cell is still alive, but the androids are dead via remote control. The Z fighters are not strong enough to defeat imperfect Cell because they are all weaker than the androids, but it is unknown what Timeline 4's Cell is up to, and it is unknown if Timeline 4 Z fighters are strong enough for Majin Buu to be revived, likely not as it required SS2 power to revive him. There is also no time machine here, so Cell(4) is stuck here.

Okay there is no paradox cell made a new timeline where he fails early on and so the hot timeline still happens or one where cell catches everyone off guard and does whatver he wants with his perfect form. But we will just say he fails early on and makee the hot tineline now future trunks 2 goes back in time but cell will be there cuz he should be Then the rest plays out as normal so there is 4 timelines